Where the Gnostic Gospels Burned
by Servant of Fire
Summary: Mary chose the BMoL and this time Sam is the one who suffers. They were right not to trust the Brits. Can Dean forgive his family and save his brother before the end or will Lucifer burn his old rival in the Church of St. John? In which Dean questions everything he ever held as gospel truth and everyone he ever loved to make his way to the person he loves most of all the worlds.
1. Chapter 1

**Where the Gnostic Gospels Burned~**

_He's a danger, Mary. To himself and others, but I_I can save him. _

Lady Bevelle seemed so certain.

Now, oh but now...Now with Sam standing on the road to the Men of Letters headquarters.

"M-Mom?" Sam's eyes were wide. Mary nodded.

"It's okay, Sam. They know. They know about everything. Everything from my deal to your curse. They can save you from your curse…"Mary smiled, trying to keep her cool. She wanted to believe that the blood test that showed the curse in Sam's blood was an indicator that she was doing the right thing.

"Mom, listen. I'm not...I'm not evil. I'm not cursed anymore." Sam was stammering.

"Don't worry, Mary. We're going to take good care of your son." Lady Bevelle nodded to her men. They cuffed Sam. Sam whose face was crumpling with sorrow. Mary had never seen that kind of sorrow on a human face. It was enough to make her believe that this curse was eviler than she could possibly imagine.

"Listen to me...They are not going to give me back. They are not going to fix me. Because if I'm still cursed, not even Heaven's trials worked to fix me…"Sam was talking fast, face draining all of its colors. Mary held her breath.

"Wait...Maybe this isn't good…" Mary bit her nails.

"It's too late now, dear. Don't listen to any of the half-blood's lies. He'll be better soon." The agents were talking excitedly, poking test needles in Sam, taking a saliva swab, poking him with prods as they cuffed him like a criminal.

"If you do this, there's no walking away...You-you, understand that right?" Sam's lips twitched.

"I know. But you'll be saved and then...That will fix everything, Sam." Mary forced a smile.

"You...You know that...You know that I am your son, right?" Sam bit his lip.

"Of course, what the hell kind of question is that?" Mary was actually getting angry with him now.

Why? He was cursed and these people could save him.

"I'm just checking." Sam let out a groan as they snapped a shock collar around his neck.

"Is that necessary?" Mary reached out a hand.

"It's for his protection." One of the guards said.

"Mary?" Sam's voice shook as he called his mother by her given name. Mary stared at her son in shock for the first time fully doubting what she had agreed to do.

"T-Tell Dean I love him?" Sam was on the verge of tears as a bag was pulled over his head.

"Wait, don't be rough on him?!" Mary shouted as Sam was carried away to an armored truck.

It drove away from the base in the cold morning.

Mary felt the wind knocked out of her when a text notification came. She looked down.

God forbid, but yes. It was a text from Dean.

_Mom? Have you heard from Sam? I've been calling him all morning. _


	2. Chapter 2

**The end before the beginning**

Castiel stood up stark straight there in the bunker's library. He felt it all. The living and the dead singing choir of the storm. He saw the end before it had begun. Where Sam would be taken, what it meant.

He heard the cry of Sam's heart and it froze his blood. Not only for the pain of it, although the pain of it was immense. But because of the _name _of it.

_DEAN!_ Sam's spirit shrieking from away in Eternity from the bookend folds of time.

"I don't understand it...I've been calling him all day. I know that we argued. And Sam, he can be a jackass sometimes. But he's...Well, I'mma sound like a girl but he's my jackass...Why would he scare the Hell outta me on purpose?! He knows better than to do stupid crap that makes me climb the walls." Dean paced, hands tearing at his hair.

Castiel's heart broke. The cracks ran like fault lines and stabbed him in several places. He felt a smothering sensation overtake him. It was a fragment of a second and it was gone before it came fully into view. The sanctuary with the open spell books and burning altars. The cage for the gnosis of pagan madness.

"Cas? You okay, buddy?" Dean had taken Cas by his arms.

_DEAN!_ The mournful voice still burdened with the pains of Hell called out to him from the blood in his veins. Castiel felt his stomach flip flop in his ears. Then, the urgency rushed into his blood, the more human part of him taking over. Somehow he knew what needed to be done.

"Dean, you should...you should call your mother." Castiel nodded.

Dean's eyes popped wide open, flashing green like the first spring made sick as he realized the implications of what Cas was saying.

"What would she have to do with this? She-She ditched me and Sam like a week ago to work with the Brits." Dean sputtered.

Cas took Dean's face in his palm.

_DEAN! _The voice wailed a third time echoing through Cas' grace and ripping him molecule from molecule.

"Dean, call your mother…."


	3. Chapter 3

**The horse leech and her daughters**

Sam woke up hanging by his hands suspended and dangling his toes over open empty. His shirt and shoes had been removed. His jeans were splashed with blood. The blood of demons and the blood of bulls.

How his hair hung in his face, clung to his skin. How he loathed that smell that meant a former addiction, an Odyssey into Hell with Lucifer and all the falling stars.

"Do you know why you're here, Sam?" Lady Bevelle's voice speaking from the floor. Sam was suspended from an echoing ceiling painted like the Sistine Chapel but with the faces become sinister.

"I'm here because you walked onto turf that you don't have a prayer of understanding…"Sam's voice was a croak in his own ears, the chorus of frogs. The woman mocked him. He heard her voice. Yet, it was not Lady Bevelle he saw below him. It was Ruby in her first form, the long golden hair swept back.

"No, Sam...You're here because you are too stupid and weak to take your powers back!" Ruby_ eyes flashing all manners of darkness.

_Shut up..._Sam could barely think it. Could barely talk in his head. She was the last person he wanted on his mind, tormentor_deceiver.

"Admit to it, Sam...In the end, they all betray you. Tell you lies they think can save you...It's time you suck it up and become who you really are…"Her voice was an echo in Sam's head.

_I've brought you here to the wonder of this place to offer you a better way. A benediction, Sam...Something that those foolish hunters of America could not possibly…._Lady Bevelle's voice just drolled on. Sam saw her no more. No, he saw Lucifer instead. Lucifer in his head. Lucifer drenched in the blood of all his demons, every little creature he had made bathing him, worshiping him with their torment.

"It's time, Sam! Time! Become the thing you hate!"

Sam closed his eyes.

"None of this is real!" He whispered, forced a smile.

"Your mother betrayed you." The voice. Whose voice was that? Sam turned to it. It was a twisted snarl…

"Meg…"Sam's nose began to bleed. Meg stood there head listing to the side. It was Meg in the first form Sam had seen her in. The body of young and tragic Meg Masters.

"You worshiped her, didn't you? Poor Sam...You worship the ground she walked on and she...She betrayed you. Wanted to fix you. Wanted to fix what was not altogether broken…"Meg stood back cold, eyes downcast as the British bathed Sam in gallons upon gallons of blood to test his curse.

"The horse leech has her daughters Sam...Crying "give give"..."Meg smirked quoting the Bible. Ruby spun around Sam a cloud of black smoke.

"Why are you listening to them? All of them are just full of it, Sam. I can make you stronger, faster, better than them...I can make you worth it, able to get revenge on it…" Ruby's voice hummed like the thousands of bees Lady Bevelle unleashed on the ceiling.

"_**Sammy." **_

It was the loudest thought Sam had all day. He looked up through the veil of demon smoke and the ache of a former addiction's call. He saw Dean. Granted it was a hallucination of Dean, but it was Dean looking exactly the same as he did when he was 26-years-old.

He leaned against the church wall doe-eyed, hair tousled by his punk-driven sense of 2005 style. The over-sized leather jacket poured around his thin body. A smug little smirk dressed his features.

"How...How…?" Sam wondered still how Dean had come through...And then the answer came.

_Because I needed him to. _

"Keep your eyes on me, kiddo. Okay? Keep your eyes on me. I'm not gonna let them take you again…"Dean's voice placid, patient, guiding Sam into the madness of Lady Bevelle liquifying his mind with potions and spells.


	4. Chapter 4

**These are the words...**

Dean could not be reasoned with. When Mary did not text him back, he took to his car and raced off into the night. Castiel sighed and slumped off to the truck he'd seized like heavenly police. He decided to sweep the area just in case, knowing in his gut and by his grace that they would not find Sam.

When Dean was alone, the tears came. They slid down his cheek slow and quiet, almost invisible in their march as only a man's tears are. He wanted to scream but there was not enough air left in his lungs.

His little brother was wheeling around his head. A marionette of destruction. Sam, suspended by the strings of Fate. Sam...Always the instrument in some master plan of Destiny, of Providence not-so-Divine in his case.

Dean wanted to curse, to shriek at his mother for her betrayal. He didn't know about what she'd done with the British Men of Letters yet. But Dean, with the long history of abuse that he had, knew enough about the pattern to guess that something happened. Even a guess was enough to make him lose his mind.

He wanted to shriek and tear the hair and beginnings of a beard from his head and face. Had not eaten, had not shaved, was gasping of thirst, all because of_

"Sammy…" Dean whispered it so deep in his throat he barely heard it. He felt it, though. It was something that he had always been too guarded to say. Yet this moment was the mouth of Lucifer's Cage for Dean. This for him was the same moment that Sam had realized when he'd used the memory of Dean to beat the Devil.

Because at this moment, a mass flashback of Sam. Sam as a little kid, Sam as a 30-something-year-old man, Sam as a teenage boy, Sam at 27...

Images of his little brother flooded Dean's mind.

_How come we don't have a Mom? _A child's voice asking.

_You are so beautiful! _A man's voice nearly bursting into tears as he at last laid eyes on his mother.

Sam had loved their mother all his life even though he had no memory of her. And now...Now that she was finally here, she of all people was also so calloused to his life that she wouldn't even text Dean back for the sake of it. No, instead, she would work with the selfsame people who had tortured her own son at first meeting. Some misguided sense of justice maybe, Dean didn't know or care. The point was Sam's feelings should have meant more to his mother. At least, for the love of God!_let his mother care about him. Evidently, she did not. Not for real.

_The rest of these sons of bitches might not care, but I do…._Dean gripped the wheel and a little sob escaped him. Because his heart was squeezing in his eyes. Everything felt like it would burst as he watched Sam, _his kid, _dance across his history.

_Look, you scared the crap outta me, you stupid little bitch. I was worried about you!_

_You don't have to be a jerk about it! _

_Bitch!_

_Jerk!_

Dean started laughing remembering the origin of the nickname's conversation.

When he saw him again, he swore he would actually use words to say it.

_I love you to Hell and back, you stupid little bitch..._Dean was sobbing now. About to swerve off the road.

"Whoa, easy, hotshot! Eyes back on the road." Sam around age 23 grabbed the wheel. Dean shivered and gasped. He was hallucinating. Dean had kept it to himself, but he had done that before. When Sam was in Hell, Dean would see him sometimes, but it was only vague shapes, glimpses out of the corner of his eyes, Sam walking into bars where he could not be.

This time was different. There in the shotgun seat, his little brother sat solid in the form of a much younger man. A boy really, fresh out of college.

"Dean, what the Hell did I just say? Look at the road, man..." Sam pointed to the road, as vivid as if he was for real but about a decade too early. Dean looked back at the road but shivered when he felt Sam's hand as if it was solid clap down on his shaking knee palm first. Was this Sam's spirit disrobed of his body? Had something truly terrible happened to his little brother?

"Are you okay, man?" Sam's voice almost had a maternal coo to it. Dean realized as he bit back tears that Sam had been the mother they hadn't had with some of his girly talk-it-out stuff as he'd idolized the one they lost. That he had raised Dean as much as Dean had raised him.

This was scaring the Hell out of him. This the thought of letting go of his Sam...more central to Dean than the lungs beneath his ribs.

"I-I um...Listen...uh...It sounds weird but….God,_I love you, man!" Dean gasped. Might as well say it to at least practice telling the real and conscious version.

Hallucination Sam giggled.

"What?! What's with the chick flick stuff, huh? Are you okay? Dude, you're shaking like a little Chihuahua...Calm down, buddy. I love you, too. Does that make you feel better, eh?" Sam chattering like Sam always chattered.

"No, Sam...No I think I've finally lost my mind over you this time." Dean wiped his face on his sleeve and hit the gas.


	5. Chapter 5

**Spinning sweetly in the music box~**

Sam heard the carousel surround him, the porcelain horses trampled him. He closed his eyes, but the hallucinations did not go away. They were there, the horses. Upon them devil clowns rode on, clicking their teeth and jeering at him. They swung mallets into him and over his head, nearly knocking the teeth from his body.

In the center of the horses stood Lucifer, burning like a thousand lights. His true face was painted far more ugly than it usually was with clown makeup.

Sam was going mad. Well and truly mad with fear. Fear that rolled to his conscious and receded deep into his mind like the waves of a black ocean.

Sam landed on his knees outside the carousel stomach spinning with the horror of what he had seen. Hallucinations made his head swim with dizziness as if this carousel was real.

"Give up to us, Sam! Surrender, and drink!" Lucifer stood in the center of the carousel now having donned one of the Mad Hatter's towering top hats of crushed purple velvet. He had teacups in either hand. They splashed and sloshed demon blood. The clowns drank from these cups with him. Their heads spun furiously.

Sam let out a whimper. The call of the blood was more tempting than even his fear was strong.

But then, Sam's eyes floated up. He had heard a voice. A cry of pain.

It was Sam himself standing in front of him, tears of demon blood running down his face.

"You are better than this...Better than I was…"It was a much younger version of Sam. The Sam that had gone to war with Lilith. Sam choked back a sob looking at that forsaken young man. But Hallucination Sam shook his head.

"Think of Dean, Sam…" He held his chin higher as the blood ran down his face.

All the cry of clowns hopped up on demon blood and of demons escalated. Sam covered his eyes with his palms and screamed, still able to see all of it even when his vision was blocked.

_Think of Dean, Sam…_Sam's own voice guided him through the whirl of that carousel, through the spinning sickly sweet music of this Lucifer's cage which had been repaved with his bones before and made into a porcelain music box by Lucifer's creativity.

_Think of Dean, Sam…._

"Dee…"Sam whispered, the taste of demon blood so strong his lungs felt like they would collapse with the struggle to breathe around it and resist it.

But then, into Sam's eyes, against all odds flashed the memory of green eyes.

_Sammy, do not blaspheme in my taco church. This is the best taco stand we've been to for 600 miles…_

Sam smiled as the memories of Dean chowing down on a ridiculous taco took over. His mind flickered the hallucination fighting Bevell's control.

"We are losing him! Rationale is taking him back. Increase the volume of demon blood." Bevell gasped.

"I thought we were trying to cure him?" Someone sounded scared.

"We only told the Mum that so she would follow this plan. A mother, even a treacherous one would never give her child up to a plan like this just because she was fond of our methods. We had to make her believe he was broken and that we could fix him. The truth is that he is extremely resilient and cannot be fixed. Now then, shall we break him?" With a sick sing-song to her voice, Lady Bevell moved underneath the apparatus. She hauled Sam down from the ceiling and slapped his face to bring him to.

"You really won't let go of your mind easily, will you, Sam? Testing the limits of your curse will be devilishly helpful in understanding the demon psychology and what creates psychics….I am proud of how hardy you are as a lab rat…"Bevell smiled. Sam barely saw her face though and could hardly recognize her as a human. Because in the eye of his liquid mind, he saw Dean. Dean and only Dean.

_Sammy, seriously? I think this taco has got even me beat. You want the rest of it? _

"Dee…"Sam giggled remembering his brother's appetite even as the rage of the British Men of Letters fed his hunger and thirst for demonic blood.


	6. Chapter 6

**When heart and cradle break~**

**A/N_Apologies for the late updates. I am a news reporter and sometimes my job keeps me from doing other things I love to do. I come here to break the writer's block. **

Dean's hands itched with the cutting metal that had gone into his palms. Cas stood back a few feet, hand extended to heal him if only he would let him. Mary stood jaw gaping with fear at the reaction Dean had. She knew he would take the news hard but…

Dean had beaten the absolute hell out of an old rusted truck here in the junkyard behind the British Men of Letters hideout. Glass had shattered from the windshield and cut his lips, leaving a beard of blood trailing down his neck.

Dean panted there in the glass and metal. Heavy like a wounded bear. For a moment, Mary shrank back toward the hideout as if she would run as if he would chase her. Then, to Cas and Mary's amaze, Dean burst into tears. In front of them. The man who only cried in front of Sam was sobbing his eyes out, sinking to his knees, laying his head on the mangled hood.

Mary acted as though she would retreat. It was Castiel who had lost his temper with her. Castiel who grabbed her by her arm, showing the silver-blue of his grace-lit eyes warning her to stay and face this.

"How-How could you do that…To your OWN SON?!" Dean gasped scrubbing violently at his tears, wheeling on her. His face was white with fear and green with blood loss, and his neck was red with rage. Tears undermined all of this, the expression of a vague and broken boy inside him.

"Because his curse... I...I did that to him...It's my fault that he's cursed…"Mary shook herself loose of Cas. Cas was so mortified by the expression on Dean's face that he had let his mother go.

Dean sputtered...Then, he grabbed his chest letting out a choking sound. Right in front of her eyes, Mary realized, her elder son was having a heart attack.

"Oh, God, Dean! No, no, it's okay...It's going to be okay. We'll find Sam…"Cas rushed to Dean and immediately commenced healing him.

Dean let in an asthmatic wheeze. He tore himself free from Cas and stomped over to his mother, jabbing a finger in her face.

"You-You...You weren't around for any of it, you know that?! Couldn't you have at least freaking talked to me first?! Talked to S_" Dean could not say his brother's name. He lost his breath and grabbed his chin in a fierce palm still filled with blood. His whole body was shaking with rage and terror.

"Dean…"

"Don't start that crap! I was out of my mind looking for him. And you knew! You knew where he was the entire time! Don't start that placating crap with me, Mary! You-you weren't even freaking around. You never were...You...You died...Died because of that stupid damn deal! And who do you think raised that kid?! Not Dad! No, your deal killed my Dad too, left a hollow body walking around_freaking Tin-Man John! Who do you think carried the cross of that curse with him?! Who do you think screwed it up even though I_I Hell, I died and burned in Hell trying to save him!... And I_I couldn't do it. And then HE died and then HE BURNED IN HELL...Tortured by the freaking DEVIL HIMSELF….Because of your stupid damn deal!" Dean spun on his mother again. He was clutching his heart again. His heart was determined to attack him. He turned its rage on her. Cas was too mortified to intervene remembering the Dean stolen by the Mark of Cain.

"I drove myself completely insane the last damn time I grieved for that kid. Because of your damn deals. And then after, after was worst. Escaping Hell bounced him dying in a nuthouse! A nuthouse, Mary! Do you have any idea what it's like to watch your brother, y-your person, your kid, the guy you care about the most of all the others of billions of people in this God-forsaken Universe_ die of exhaustion cooped up in the funny farm?!" Dean tore at his hair, stammering panicking now.

"I thought that was bad enough, then I watched the freaking trials kill him...I've watched so many things kill my little brother...I keep not being able to save him from heaven and hell and all the BS that that freaking deal…"Dean shook his head, crying all over again. Crying into his fist. This was decades of sorrow and terror bubbling to the surface, a 4-year-old child vulnerable in front of his mother who had now betrayed the man.

"You have no idea what kind of Hell his life has been...What kind of Hell I have and would go through to save him. Those people...Those British Men of Letters or whatever the hell they are...They tortured him. Tapped into stuff in his head you can't possibly even nightmare dredge up…" Dean choked, turned and hit his knees, vomiting in the grass. He held his sides, sobbing, rocking back and forth, having another heart attack. Cas knelt beside him, shushing him, trying to keep him alive…

"We will find Sam, Dean...Please calm down." Cas hugged Dean as he healed the heart attack. But Dean dipped his head, vomiting again. He tore at the grass around him and let out a groaning, keening wail that sent the hair prickling up on Mary's arms.

"What the Hell damn difference is it gonna make, Cas?! He won't be him anymore...He won't be him…" Dean got up on stumbling legs heading for his car. He turned and pointed at Cas.

"I can't...I can't talk to her anymore...You get the general direction of where they took him from her...I can't let him...be alone in the end. A-And when he's...When he's...when my brother's history...When they make him into something else testing that damn demon blood curse...Somebody who loves him needs to put him down with the least amount of pain that's possible…" Dean collapsed inside his car and peeled off without waiting for Cas, trusting he would call him sooner than later.

Cas turned to Mary. Mary who was in tears despite herself.

"Sam...Loved you all his life. All his life...How, how could you do that Mary?" Cas shook his head.

Mary drew a shaky breath to explain. Cas shook his head, shushing her. He then put his hands to her head to read her mind and find Sam.


	7. Chapter 7

**Saving grace~**

_He needs you to save him you know..._Sam's voice echoed hollowly off his skull. Sam was locked in the dungeon beneath this ancient church. He thought it was in Egypt from the designs but then he heard the familiar sounds of a Syracuse radio station he and Dean listed to many lonely highway nights.

_What are you doing? You're not thinking about caving again..._Hallucination Sam stood in front of today's Sam demon blood dripping from his teeth. His eyes blazed yellow as the curse tested its limits.

"What do you mean? Needs me to...to save him?" Sam stammered. His throat was so dry. Bevell had denied him water hoping it would force him to drink the alternative…

_Well, it's Dean...You know how Dean does when you break apart..._The younger Sam sat beside the elder. With a weary sigh, Sam turned to look at his younger self.

"I never did right by you did I...I should have given you better chances...Maybe things would be different now…"Sam's voice was cracked. He felt cameras zeroing in on him. Younger Sam laughed, bitterly, never answering the question.

_We lost all our chances the day Jessica died..._Another voice said from the corner. Both versions of Sam turned to look at the doe-eyed Joe College. He was covered in ashes, the flower on his tuxedo wilted. He was carrying a huge bushel of dead and burning carnations.

"What did we do without her? Crash and burn…" Sam giggled and shook himself, fighting back the night that was creeping into his veins.

"You did...And I'm so, so sorry…" Jessica floated into the room, walking on fire, startling the ghost versions of Sam's younger self away in the wake of her blazing gown. Sam covered his eyes as she drew nearer hair and eyes ablaze. The flames died down, leaving her in a morning snow halo of light.

"Sam…" Jessica's voice was like rain into Sam's burning mind. Sam started crying, why he didn't know. He needed to keep the water inside him.

"Shh...Baby, shh...I know." She smiled through her own tears and hugged him. He felt her as if she was real. More tears came. Suddenly, he didn't care if this was a trick of the brain. He was going to die soon probably. Maybe she was waiting on the other side? He clung to her and her golden hair that smelled like strawberry shampoo.

Jessica leaned back and held Sam's chin. She smiled and giggled.

"Damn, Samuel...You aged beautifully…"

"What…?" Sam's lips twitched as she traced them with her fingertips.

"The magic...The witchcraft in this place? They called me up..Accidentally, I'm sure. They were seancing up your old demons, I guess (I don't know how all this supernatural stuff works and I'm dead.) But...I heard you crying and... I came…I'm really here, baby. My-My spirit is." Jessica tilted her head to the side. Sam nodded.

"I'm more dead than alive now, aren't I? You're here to reap me?" Sam laughed. How ironic. Of course, it had to be her...

"Shh, it's okay...You've wanted this for a long time." She frowned. He was breaking her heart and he wasn't even trying.

Sam swallowed.

"Jess…"

"Don't, Sam. Don't say you're sorry…I'm at peace now. And soon...Shh, soon you will be too...Just hold out until then." Jessica's eyes danced in the light. Sam gasped.

"Jess...If I...What if I...Would you forgive me?"

"If you fail again? Sam, honey, I never blamed you in the first place. For the end of the World and all of that? I saw it all from much higher up, you know..." Jessica shushed Sam. Sam laughed. Then, with the last bit of strength he had, he had to test it...If she was real then he could kiss her, couldn't he?

It was like the first raindrop in the desert. It would have brought the dying man to tears again if he'd had any more to cry. Jessica lingered at his lips, kissing him back like only she could. Holding his head as it listed to the side.

"You-you're...You are the same." Sam felt the laugh burn like salt-pepper in his nostrils. She hummed to him. They fell into silence as they often did when they lived.

"You've always been my saving grace, Jessica Moore...Will you...will you forgive me if I, if I have to borrow some of that light...and…" Sam felt like he was drinking nails, but he had to talk to her while he could. The curse might take him somewhere worse than dying would.

"And go back to Dean? I knew you would try...Baby, whatever you decide. I'm always gonna be here for you. I'm ready for you when you come here, and I'm watching over you when you're not...Dean, he needs you more than I do right now…" Jessica nodded. Sam saw his own eyes dance in the reflection of her blazing ones.

"Jess_I!.." Sam was struggling to talk now to think clearly but he meant to say _I love you…_

"Shh...I know, Sam...I know. And I love you too...Did you know I found the ring catalog you ordered? I picked one out for you, circled it and everything, the night that I died?... That's what I was baking those cookies for, huh?... I was gonna bribe you to tell me the truth with them…"Jessica giggled as she drew Sam nearer, laying her face in his longer hair. She played with the ends of it admiring it. Of course, she would love it. She'd loved guys with longer hair. That's why he'd done it. She had always made him the best version of himself and he'd carried that with him all his adult life.

"I would have said yes to you a million-times, Sam. I would have been your wife, you know that? Oh, if only life had been kinder to you, sweetheart…If only that dream could be..."Jessica was crying softly in his hair as she kissed his forehead. A ghost's tears have no substance_if they had he could drink and be revived.

"You need to rest now, Sam? Okay? They're coming back soon, baby, and they are gonna hurt you. And I...I can't stop them...I'm too far to reach you...But Dean will. Dean will find you and then, whether you stay or go...It's gonna be alright. I promise, baby...I'm right here...I'm right here…"She wrapped her arms protectively around him. He faded out of conscious reluctantly holding her snow-white hand for the dear life he was losing.


	8. Chapter 8

**A thousand shades of breaking **

They had been driving for hours after Cas had called Dean with the general directions. They cut a zigzag path to Syracuse until Dean drove too far ahead of Cas' truck to be seen.

When Castiel, at last, caught up to Dean, he was in a ditch. He had driven Baby off the road, got her stuck in the mud. Cas feared the worst as he pulled over and ran to his friend.

He found Dean slumped over in the driver's seat. For a split second, the angel felt a stab in his stomach that shot needles into his eyes. What if he had just lost his humans? What if the world had just come down in a thousand shades of breaking?

"Dean…"Castiel whispered as he placed his hand over Dean's heart.

Dean shuddered, waking up. As it would turn out, he had simply collapsed from his stress-induced exhaustion. He was asleep.

"Cas, why did you wake me up?" Dean's eyes searched the horizon. Sam was out there, over that hazy blue line. Sam was also behind Dean's eyes, having been the star-player in whatever dream he'd been seeing.

"Because you were crashed in a ditch and I feared the worst…" Cas sat in the shotgun seat. Dean turned to look at him, face dark and frightening now. The emotion from earlier was gone. It was as if stone plaster, all of marble white, had been applied to his cheeks. The man was gone.

"The worst has already happened." Dean nodded, chin tilting down.

"You don't know that yet...He could be…"Cas' voice cracked and fell. Because he didn't believe that. Dean knew he didn't believe that. Lying would do no good.

"He could be, but he's not...You know he's not." Dean's eyes floated into the distance.

"Even if he fights it, and he will fight it…"Dean shook his head now so tired.

"His head has taken so many hits...He's not gonna be himself. Either it will crack his soul to smithereens or he will turn again...If he turns…"Dean nodded to Ruby's knife.

"No, Dean…Please...there has to be a way. We can cure him like we did you…"Cas' bottom lip trembled.

"No, Cas...No, you know that when they get done with him, all the regular tricks will be out the window." Dean swallowed, lips quaking for a moment.

"If it comes to that, I'm gonna do for him what needs to be done. He'd do it for me...And if I do it...God help me, Cas. If I do it, I will know for certain that the most as possibly can be done is being done to make sure it doesn't hurt the real lost and scared soul that would be under it all…" Dean shook his head.

"I love him too...You could let me do it. I would put him to sleep. He wouldn't feel a thing." Cas felt his hands shake at the horrible thing he was suggesting. Dean took a deep breath.

"No, Cas...Buddy, I know, believe me, I know you mean well, but it's gotta be me. He…"Dean swallowed and looked Cas in the eyes. He took him by the trench coat's collar to get his attention. Cas felt his eyes go wide.

"You want it to be you because you know you can't bear it. You want your heart to explode so if he dies, so do you…"Cas felt like his world would fall apart.

"Listen to me...Please...You care about me too, right? Care about us both?" Dean was desperate now, braiding his fingers in the coat. Cas felt his blood and grace run cold.

"Dammit, Dean...Don't give me an ultimatum. You know I love you both more than I even care about my own brothers…"Cas bit his lip. Dean nodded.

"I just need you to understand that...After what sh-sh-she did…"Dean's voice was almost gone, spirit flickering like a candle in a gust. Cas held his breath.

"I'm not me anymore." Dean's voice cracked. Cas felt his stomach churn. He hugged his friend then, hard and close. Dean laid his face on Cas' shoulder, ragdoll limp.

Cas put his fingers in Dean's hair.

"I know…I'm...I'm sorry…" Cas pulled Dean closer. Dean let out another shaky breath.

"Even if he was to make it...I don't know. Me and him...This is it. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back or whatever…" Dean nodded, clinging to Cas like a toddler clings to his mother. Cas felt the absence of the boy Dean's mother in his whole person. Sometimes as strong as they were Castiel forgot that Dean and Sam were orphan children somewhere deep inside.

Dean took Cas' hand roughly and pressed it over his heart.

"When the time comes, I want you to understand. You have done so much for me and S-" Dean's throat cracked and hiccuped on his brother's name. It looked like he wouldn't be able to utter it for a long time yet, but Cas nodded. He understood.

"It ain't fair to ask, Cas...We care about you too, you know? But...When the time comes...And it's time for me to break. I need you to let me. When it's time to put the old horse down, I want you to let me come to pieces. Let my heart bust and let me go, buddy…" Dean nodded.

Cas leaned back a little and cupped Dean's chin.

"Dean…"

"Please, Cas. I can't." Dean tried to look away but Cas cupped his chin firmly in his palm.

"Look at me, child…" Cas nodded, trying to remind Dean how much older than him he really was. Dean's eyes went a bit wide in surprise, but he nodded.

"If it comes to that, then yes...Yes, Dean, as impossible as it will be. I will love you both to the last and let you go if it will hurt less. But, Dean, if there's even a prayer that you can be saved, and that you can live? You need to let me try to heal you...Both of you." Cas nodded.

Dean swallowed.

"Okay…"

"Now, move over…"

"What?"

"Dean, I'm driving."

"Cas-really?"

"I'm driving and you're sleeping. No more questions. Don't make me knock you out myself." Cas grinned sheepishly. Dean nodded. They switched seats.


	9. Chapter 9

**White rabbit~**

Sam knew this wasn't real. When he woke up, wide eyed, Jessica pulled away from him crying out his name. He knew this was another stronger dose of all their spells. That this was a trap that was rigged to trick him into falling back into the trap.

A white rabbit ran by him through the trees of Purgatory, dragging a golden clock behind it. Sam held his breath. This was _Alice in Wonderland. _His mind, in a last feverish attempt to stay human, had gone back to his favorite childhood book. One that he still looked at sometimes.

Sam closed his eyes trying to make the hallucination go away. He was lost in here. It was so real, so immersive that it felt like standing at the bottom of the ocean for the heavy weight of its realness. Too,it was empty in his heart. Empty like a crater on the moon.

"Please...Please don't...Please don't leave me." Sam was begging for someone_ anyone.

"I'm not gonna leave you, son."

Sam snapped to attention. He turned and looked. There, into the woods of a Alice in Wasteland…

"Bobby?" Sam's lips felt like burnt toast now, all cumbersome and dry. Bobby smiled.

"Yeah, it's me...When Jessica couldn't get to you anymore, she asked me to come." Bobby nodded.

Sam blinked.

"Am I dead?" Sam bit his lip. Bobby took a few steps closer.

"Not yet, Sam." Bobby's eyes were glassy like tears were trying to form there, but he didn't want to tempt Sam with the illusion of water. Sam let a soft, shaky breath.

"Please, I don't wanna be alone, Bobby…"Sam flinched when the voice that came out of him was that of a child. Bobby was looking down at him now too eyes tender as they were sad.

Sam's hands flew to his chest. His eyes opened wide there in this twisted world. He was in the body of his 10-year-old self.

"It will do that to you, son...Bend you and twist you. Change you in every way that it can." Bobby stepped closer. Then, he reached out a rough old hand.

"But no matter what, I ain't leaving you, boy. You didn't even have to ask." Bobby smiled. Sam reluctantly took his hand, as his adult mind faded away, and his child mind started to take over to match this new reality.

"Don't promise, okay?"

"Why not?" Bobby tilted his head, face speaking his sorrow. He was fully conscious and remembered Sam both as a child and as a man.

"If you don't promise me, you can't hurt me." Child-Sam smiled.

"Well, I don't got any designs on hurting you, sport." Bobby gasped as they two started walking through the forsaken woods together.

"Yeah, that's what they all say…"Sam looked up. A white dress flickered by in the trees. At first, Sam was dreaming. The soft glow. He thought that it was Alice. And then, a thought, an eruption of joy_

"Mom!" He called, his heart remembering who he'd come here looking for, why this book had been his favorite. His Mom had read it to Dean in a time before Sam was. Dean told him so.

The spirit passing by was not Alice but Mary Winchester in Wonderland. She carried a lantern by her face, heading off into the woods. Behind her, spider webs started to lash the trees together, making them groan squeamishly.

"Where is she going?!" Sam felt his heart beating way too fast on the tip of his tongue.

Bobby held Sam's hand tighter.

"It's okay, sport. It's okay." Bobby didn't know how to reason with the child. He wondered how much of the adult Sam was left in this place. What had happened between the boy and his resurrected mother that was bringing so much terror into the fairy tale love he'd once had for her memory?

"Mom!" Sam tore away from Bobby and ran after his mother.

"Sam! Hold on!" Bobby took off running after Sam.

"Mom...Wait, Mom!" Sam's voice squeaked and cracked as he tangled and twisted in the spider's webs.

"No, No, No!" He heard his voice screaming, begging, pleading. His mother's eyes appeared in the darkness, looking in his direction, but seeing through him.

"Mom, please!" Sam screamed as his little hand peered through the keyhole in the webs.

A white rabbit ran to him, nuzzling his hand as if it knew.


	10. Chapter 10

**One more fire**

Dean leaned against the wall. He felt his heart like a paper ball roll up in his chest, crinkling wearily with every beat. He had his rifle pressed to his chest. His machete bit into his hip by the handle, but he didn't bother to slide it over. His eyes stared into the abysmal darkness that was his mind while he waited for Castiel to scope the church in Syracuse.

_My kid brother is being tortured like I can't even dream up in there, and I've been to Hell…_

Dean's thoughts bit him a serpent coiling around his spine. He wanted to cry out, but no sound would come from him. He sat there, waiting in the ashes that were piled in the church's garden. Lady Bevell's men had been dumping the ashes of the demons they bled and burned out here.

_My kid brother is being tortured like every which way he ever was at once, all because of our Mom…_

Dean felt his throat grow tight. The rest of him was hollow, made of tin. God forbid, he was turning into his Tin Man father...

Dean closed his eyes and all on a sudden it came back. A night, a peaceful night, a long time ago. One when the Winchesters were getting along such as they rarely did.

When Sammy was just a 15-year-old boy and happy-go-lucky for the most part before raw cynicism had eroded his pure and docile nature.

Speak of the Tin-Man and he will appear. Dean felt his frigid face threaten a smile. When he had needed his wayward father, somehow there he was again. He had never been so ready to appear in life.

_"You boys are being ridiculous...There is nothing better than a Skeeter Cake…We ate them on the daily back in Nam." John rolled his eyes at his boys. The night flickered around the little campfire. Left too far away from town, the Winchester's had no choice but to camp the night in this abandoned park reserve where they had just killed a Mehne_Which is a type of water monster the Cheyenne named. _

_"Nuh-uh, there is no way that letting mosquitos drop in a pancake is healthy or safe or_Ech!" Dean as a 19-year-old boy shied away from the pancake that John was cooking over an open flame. The skeeters were bad here, and Dean, ever the germ freak, was not sure how they could eat and not die of some kind of vector-borne disease even though he didn't see any skeeters in the batter just yet._

_Sam leaned against a tree, a newspaper spread on his lap, wild bangs falling in his eyes. He grinned sheepishly at Dean. _

_"What? You afraid you'll turn into a Mehne if you eat that, Dee? Might mess it up with you and the bottle blonde chick at the diner a few miles from here, huh?" Sam winked smiling with all his teeth engaged. Dean sat up straighter back arched like a cat. _

_"Shut up, Sam! This is serious! Dude, I am offended you would talk about that right now when Dad is literally putting our health and safety at risk with this_this...What the hell even is a Skeeter Cake?!" Dean shivered, rubbing his arms, just so annoyed with everything. _

_"Dean Winchester…" Dad's heavy voice spoke over the fire, coffee black eyes burning behind the smoke as he locked gaze with Dean. _

_"I may be a horse's ass and lead you down every godforsaken highway on this continent. But I love my boys to death and I would never feed you something that would hurt you. Now eat your damn Skeeter Cakes and shut up…" John smirked then. He rarely smiled so this was a new experience that burned itself like lasers into Dean's memory forever. Possibly more so because they had decided to bury the hatchet for Sammy's sake seeing the kind of day he'd had. Dean knew this was a forever moment by the lump that formed a gold carat in his throat._

_Sam was giggling into his fist, hair a wild thatch of humid windblown mess. Dean watched, stomach in his mouth with delirious happiness_which was surprising given that they were stranded in the middle of nowhere because of how black the road was. It was just his Dad saying that he did care about him was rare pearls and to watch his Sammy laughing like the innocent teenage kid he was supposed to be...It was like some kind of wonder drug to his ears. _

_How it blazed in his memory now! When John went crawling on his knees to Sam. Sam who's hair was wild and tousled because he had almost been killed this night. One of the first times he had legitimately almost not made it out of a hunt alive. His leg was busted up too_bloodied and hurting like the kind of Hell that Sam was wont to grin and bear._

_"That goes for you too, Chuckles…"John gasped, pulling Sam to his chest and smoothing his wild hair down. Dean's eyes throbbed. Sam and John rarely were in a good mood with each other, and even more rarely showed affection. But Sam had nearly died and so John clung to him, holding him to his chest for a moment as he kissed his forehead. Sam, to Dean's amazement, closed his eyes and suffered it_ lucky to be alive. ( This was years before the fight that had torn these two apart. Dean could look back now and see the difference, how much less awkward with one another father and little brother once had been.) _

_"Damn it, Sammy...Something happens to you and I think I would turn to dust inside. You are a pain in the ass but you're my pain in the ass, kiddo, don't ever forget it." John laughed as he squeezed Sam's shoulder. _

_"No, sir." Sam smiled up at his Dad. Then, he smiled at Dean. _

"Something happens to you and I think I'll turn to dust inside…"Dean whispered the quote out loud as the memory of his teenage brother blazed before his eyes.

"Dad, I lost...I lost him..I lost…" Dean could barely think his brother's name now. He tried to say it.

"Mmhee…" The final sounds of "Sammy" groaned out of his throat.

"S_" He started over, but it came out a hiss. A snake's hiss and he bit his tongue and flinched, busting his chin against the rifle.

"Dad...I lost him...Lost...Lost.."

_Little brother, I can't say your name! _It made Dean's head hurt to think that he could no longer force out the sounds needed for the term of endearment he'd used to proudly all his brother's life. He could scarcely think them, and God help him!

"I can't say his name, I can't!" Dean shook his head.

But into Dean's mind crept the voice of his father. A long, long time ago.

_Most importantly, watch out for Sammy…_

"Dad, how can I? How...I freaking...I can't...I can't. I couldn't and…"

_Son…_

Dean was hearing his father's voice now. Unbeknownst to him, it actually was his father's voice, cutting through the static of the seance Lady Bevell was using to torture Sam. Dean thought he was tripping but he just ran with it anyway, lonely as he was.

"Yes, sir?" That phrase sounded so weird in his late 30s gruff voice.

_You gotta keep your head together, Dean...You have to get to your brother. It's your job, right? Watch after our little pain in the ass? _

Dean cringed. He swallowed a gulp wishing he could lay eyes on the face he so desperately needed a name for.

"Yeah, yeah...um…" Dean swallowed.

_You've pulled him out of every fire he ever fell into and this one...This is just one more fire._

"One more fire." Dean stood up, feeling someone move along the wall. He reached out and grabbed a collar twisting his fist in it. He slammed the body against the wall, the rifle training to it with a whip-like coil.

"It's me...I found him." Cas smiled patiently at Dean who had pinned him to the wall. Dean spluttered and let his friend go. The angel placidly smoothed his coat and nodded over his shoulder indicating the way he had come.


	11. Chapter 11

**Destroyer of worlds~**

Of all the terrible endings they'd imagined for Sam, this was the last thing. This was the worst thing. This was worse than the fear of putting an end to him.

They stealth snuck in expecting to meet a fierce fight. The Brits were waiting gathered around an altar. Sam was laying on it. He was comatose, a long white choir robe pulled over his clothes. His hands were folded around something, a burning branch it looked like. The fire was burning, blazing, smoking in his hands but he never stirred or let go of it as it burned him. Around him burned altars of candles and water bowls full of floating tea candles.

"Dean. Castiel. Lower your weapons. There will be no need for a struggle." Lady Bevell sounded cheerful and pleased.

"Maybe not, but we would like to kill you just to do it." Dean had his gun trained between Lady Bevell's eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure you would." Bevell came around the altar. She looked from Dean to Castiel and back at Dean.

"Mary won't be joining us then?"

Dean came at Bevell, but Castiel took his arm.

"What?" Dean growled annoyed that the seraph was so much stronger than he was. Cas was looking onward, face gone sheet white, in the direction of Sam's comatose body.

Dean reluctantly followed his gaze. Beside comatose Sam stood Sam as he'd looked just yesterday. Except that his nose was bleeding like it had done when he had psychic powers.

"A-Are you?" Dean couldn't say it.

"Dead? Oh, no, he's far worse than dead. Aren't you, Sam?" Lady Bevell came to what appeared to be this specter and took his chin. Sam tossed his head reeling away from her touch.

"What did you do to him?!" Dean shrieked. Cas was chewing his nails, eyes filling with tears. It was apparent that he already understood what had happened.

"I did what your mother asked. I cured him." Bevell smiled. Out from behind her stepped Yellow-Eyed Sam. Sam from Dean's worst nightmares. Sam who had drunk so much demon blood his teeth were perpetually stained a throbbing bold shade of black. Blood streamed down his chin.

"Wh-What?" Dean took two steps back.

"They are all me…" A child's voice. Dean turned to look at his brother at the age of 11. He was holding the white rabbit from Neverland. The clock hung around his neck.

"Then, they are also not me. Rather, they are puppets...Psychic projections, the collective conscious of one person spread across different life scenes..." Hell Sam stepped around the altar still scorched to his bones from time spent in Lucifer's Cage. Dean had never known this version of Sam but immediately guessed which one he was. He flinched and thought he might vomit.

"Which_Which one of you is the real...The real…?" Dean still could not say his brother's name. Hell Sam realized this now and smiled apologetically.

"That one," said Child Sam pointing to the one in the coma.

"Basically, he keeps us all conscious at once. It's his psychic power that's doing it." Joe-College Sam, the one who was 22 and full of life, spoke next. Dean looked at him with wide eyes. He had almost forgotten how innocent he really had looked back in those days. How those scruffy bangs threatened to make his eyes disappear.

"How, how are you sustaining this? Did you drink?" Castiel pointed at Yellow-Eyed Sam.

"Am I always the boy with the demon blood to you people? Are you going to put me down? Huh, Cassie?! Wanna put me down?! Want to try that?!" That version of Sam roared and hissed and his eyes rolled back turning from yellow to solid ebony. Dean flinched.

"Answer the question...Did you...Did you drink it?" Dean pointed to the puddles of demon blood on the floor.

"No...No, he didn't. We didn't." Present Day Sam stepped in front of the other illusions of himself. He reached and grabbed a previously unseen chain that was around Yellow-Eyed Sam's neck, hauling him to his knees as he growled and snapped like a dog.

"Down! Get down!" Sam hissed at the cursed version of himself. Who whined, and rolled over on his back and begged.

"Please, please don't hurt me, please they made me hungry...They poured it on me, boss! They dripped and dribbled it…Splashed it and bathed me in it...Please, Sam...Please, boss!"Yellow-Eyed Sam covered his eyes with his hands.

Present Day Sam made a sympathetic face. He knelt beside the crying, begging boy and laid a hand on his head.

"Please, boss, please…"Yellow-Eyed Sam shook big childlike tears in his Amarillo peepers.

"Okay, hey, take it easy. I'm not gonna hurt you and I won't let these other guys hurt you either. But you have to promise to get yourself under control or I'll let Hell-Sam do whatever he wants to so as to make you. What did I tell you before?" Present Day Sam swallowed.

"It doesn't control you...Y-you control it…" Yellow-Eyed Sam lay still.

"That's right. That's how it's gonna stay too. I don't blame you, but you are gonna keep a lid on it, or so help me, I'll let him off the hook." Sam nodded toward Hell Sam and snapped his fingers at Yellow-Eyed Sam and the demon boy nodded and kept his trap firmly shut.

Sam stood up, wary and sad, looking at Dean and Cas with the expression of a kicked puppy.

"You bitch…"Dean realized how Lady Bevell had done this listening to the cursed version of his little brother whimper and whine. Lady Bevell laughed.

"Your brother is amazingly resilient and carefully committed to sobriety. Yet, a combination of exposure to the former blood addiction and arcane hallucination magic...It... well it overpowered him. Tapped into his hidden reserves. It brought the psychic powers back from obstruction and split the man into pieces. Each one unique and uniquely insufferable, but tamed by the one comatose Sam. Cured, I'd say." Bevell folded her arms.

Dean shot her. She stared, mouth hanging open. The bullet had stopped on a bulletproof vest. The British Men of Letters swarmed the scene to take vengeance but Present Day Sam lifted his hand.

Dean stood jaw hanging open as Sam used his former powers to knock the Brits backward. They slid into the walls cracking them.

Yellow-Eyed Sam laughed and screamed and stretched and starting begging.

"Please, boss, please...They tempted me with it and now...I'm so hungry, I'm so hungry…"

"Be quiet, Yellow-Eyes. Look, don't make me throw you back in the basement." Sam snapped at his cursed self.

Hell-Sam stepped forward and collared Yellow-Eyed Sam.

"Remember what happened to us when we detoxed in Lucifer's Cage? Do you wanna hurt like that ever again?" Hell Sam gnashed his teeth as the cursed one whimpered and sobbed, shaking his head.

"Didn't think so. So shut _the_ **Hell** up!" Hell Sam threw Yellow-Eyed Sam across the church.

"Hey! Don't be so hard on him. He's always wanted to be normal." Child Sam rubbed the back of his head feeling real pain when the cursed incarnation made impact and passed out.

"You wanted him to stop his bitching, didn't you?! He's out for now. I see that as a win." Hell-Sam spat blood on the floor.

"Sam?…"Castiel was crying now bringing the attention of all the versions of Sam his way.

Dean was on his knees now, sobbing into his hands.

"Oh, no...Come on, guys...Please...Please don't cry…" Present Day Sam shook his head, green around the lips.

Child Sam went to Dean.

"Shh...Hey, buddy...Hey...It's...It's gonna be okay." Child Sam hugged Dean. Dean reached out and scooped the little guy hard to his chest, bawling against the little Carhatt hand-me-down and backpack he'd given him once long ago. Dean shivered at how real the child incarnation of his brother felt, down to the smell of Old Spice borrowed from Bobby to seem more mature.

Castiel went to Present Day Sam and took him by the shoulders.

"Tell me how to wake you up…"Castiel shook his head as the Sam in his arms hung his head. Hell-Sam stepped forward then.

"You can't...Or at least you won't. Humpty Dumpty's gotta figure out how to put his own head back together. That is if he can hold on to me at any given time…" Hell Sam snapped his neck hands catching fire.

Dean stood up with Child-Sam holding his shaking hand. Castiel shook his head.

"That can't be right…"Castiel gave Present Day Sam a little shake.

"No, he's right...We can't hold on to us very long at all." Child-Sam stepped away from Dean. Then all the Sam's flickered and disappeared leaving the groaning, bloodied Brits and the comatose body alone together in the room.


	12. Chapter 12

**Jonah in the belly of the whale~**

"Don't...Take it off him. Take the dress off of him." Dean pressed forward. The Brits were still reeling on the floor, some of them clutching their skulls. No one had expected Sam Winchester in a coma to pack that vicious of a psychic punch. Then again, this was the man who beat the Devil.

Castiel had gone to Sam's sleeping side. He reached to lift him up off the table and carry him to the car. Dean pressed forward. He ripped the choir robe down from his brother's shoulders. The burning branch clattered on the floor, going out at last. Castiel took Sam's scorched hands, burned to the bones, and healed them.

"Oh, Sam...Like Jonah swallowed by the great fish. Your own mind…"Cas sucked back a sob. He reached down and ran his hand through Sam's cinnamon brown hair, made dark by the dirt and blood in it.

"S_Sss!" Dean shuttered trying to say his brother's name. The placid face never moved, the eyes scarcely fluttered. Sam looked dead. Except for the slightest flush in his cheeks he might as well be dead.

"Don't think that we will let what you've done go unnoticed…"Lady Bevell croaked from the ground. She was bleeding, the vest pressed into the non-fatal wound.

"Yeah, well, we're more than happy to see you again on the field…"Cas' jaw trembled with rage. He reached and lifted Sam up like a groom lifts the bride. He laid his head on his shoulder a hand tucked in his hair. Dean stared amazed. It was strange to see Castiel in the slim frame of Jimmy Novak carrying Gigantor Sam like a ragdoll. That's exactly what this looked like.

"Wait! Is he...I think he's…?"Dean ripped a bandana out of his pocket and started dabbing at the blood trailing from his brother's nose. Sam's psychic powers had always frightened Dean. His eyes burned like the eyes of owls in his face. Cas smiled at him.

They carried Sam to the car. Dean opened the door to the back. He made Cas wait until he stacked several shirts and blankets and duffle bags to make Sam a little pallet. They laid Sam down and wrapped a blanket around him.

Dean leaned down then taking both sides of his brother's face. He chewed his lips, trying so desperately to say his name, but no sound would come.

Cas felt his heart pierced in three places. Dean, at last, gave up. He stooped and kissed Sam between his eyes.

They climbed back into the car wordlessly. Dean hit the gas ripping the streets up.

"I hate her!" Dean shouted after about 20 minutes.

"Bevell?" Cas felt it in his stomach. Their little family coming undone.

"Mary!"


	13. Chapter 13

**The beautiful dreamer and the sleepless one**

Dean wandered the halls that night. Pacing. Sam was laying in his bed a duvet pulled up to his chin. Dean had insisted he be put in his bed as if he was only sleeping. He didn't want to admit aloud what he and Cas both were thinking. That Sam may be sleeping forever. Because it was too horrible to picture.

Dean went into the kitchen and pulled out beer and whiskey and anything else he could get his hands on that might make him feel a little out of his head. He scooped them all out and splayed them on the counter.

"You can't climb back into a bottle, Dean."

The voice echoed in the room shaking the walls like gunfire. Dean closed his eyes. He had prepared his mind for this eventuality. He still wasn't ready when the time came.

Sam stepped into the light. Not the same Sam that was in the bed a few rooms down the hall. This was Sam at 26. This was Sam right before he stepped off the edge of eternity and into the Cage. This was the Sam who had saved the world.

Of all the many versions of his little brother, this was the last one Dean wanted to have a heart-to-heart with. Mostly because he didn't wish to come face to face with this one. This one who he had never properly said goodbye to. The one he had the horrific falling out with. The one he had barely trusted and had only vaguely loved.

Until right there in the last hour, when he realized he loved him so much that it hurt. That it pierced and burned like cold iron. When he loved him enough to take on the Devil just to talk to him.

He saw in his eyes what he had wanted to forget. This was that Sam who had loved him so hard in return it gave him a supernatural burst of strength.

Neither of them wanted to admit that this was the Sam who had died and burned in Hell for Dean. Not to save the world. The world was lost at that moment. It was Dean.

It was always Dean…

"Well, then what the Hell am I supposed to do?" Dean bit his lip. He had forgotten how truly intense this incarnation of his brother was. He looked just like he did in the last few hours of his last day under the sun. Resolved. Freaked to Hell. Almost ethereal already soon to be taken by the deep. A dreamer. The beautiful damned boy who had been forsaken by the armies of heaven and hell and left to face down Perdition all alone.

"You are supposed to live." Sam tilted his head. He took a deep breath.

"You know how this song and dance goes, man." Sam smiled. The look in his eyes. It was scary. It hurt to think that this version of Sam was still alive in the subconscious of the one laying in his bed a few hundred yards away.

"Don't. I don't...I don't want to EVER have that conversation again." Dean jabbed his finger in Sam's face. Sam took a shaky breath.

"You knew then that I was never coming back."

"Well, you did. Last time, against the odds…"Dean bowed his head. His lips were trembling.

"This isn't like last time, Dean."

Dean looked up. He almost fell over his own feet. Sam's hair and clothes were on fire for a moment. Then, all at once, he was a pillar of ashes. The ashes fell to the floor and started swirling. A light and he was reanimated. When Dean turned, it was Hell-Sam standing behind him.

"You know that this isn't like last time, Dean...Last time I was one and whole. I was a different human back then." Hell-Sam's eyes were replaced by flames.

Dean stood staring into those eyes that flickered with Hell-fire.

"How are you helping?! Huh? Are we gonna do this the entire time my version of Sammy's in a coma?!" Dean bit his lip. His hands were shaking.

Sam nodded. The scars on his face illuminated in the light.

"I'm trying to help you let go of me, Dean...Because...Because I may not make it back this time. This for real may be the last time…" Hell-Sam's despair was palpable in the air. It made it sting and crack with the fire coming from his person.

Dean took a swing at Hell-Sam. To his surprise, Demon Blood Sam caught his fist in his supernaturally strong one. Yet, he didn't hurt him or attack like the cursed version of his brother might have done.

"You know he's right. Let him be right. Your version of Sam is cracked, Dean. Besides, what you fail to realize is that he is _all _of us put together." Demon-Blood Sam's eyes rolled black in his face. He held on to Dean's fist. Dean let out a shaky gasp as suddenly he understood him.

"I was cruel to you when you were Sam." Dean was immensely surprised by what he'd just said. The black eyes rolled back. The younger incarnation of his brother looked like he'd been slapped and felt it.

"I was cruel because I didn't get it then. I get it now. I've been you. I've been a Demon…" Dean reached up and took the face of this version of Sam. The boy's eyes flickered raw fear. Blood ran from his lips on either side and dripped to the floor.

"Sammy, if...If all of you are Sammy...I'm sorry...I'm sorry I wasn't kinder to you. If I had been more forgiving and more understanding, maybe you could have been led off that path before it made you its chew toy. Hell, I maybe could have even saved you from all of it…" Dean bit his lip. He had realized that many times in the past but it was real and different now with this version of Sam looking at him face to face.

Demon Blood Sam took a step back shaking his head.

"No..No, no...No, wait….Wait…"He was cringing...crying.

Dean looked at Hell-Sam.

"What is wrong with him?" Dean bit his lip.

"I think...I think you've woken him up." Hell-Sam tilted his head.

"What? What does that mean?" Dean looked at Demon-Blood Sam as he disappeared like a million grains of sand in the wind.

"He's barely holding on to us. We are all just him suspended in animation." Hell-Sam shrugged.

"Wait! You...You are past versions of him that want to die, right? If...If that's it then….Then I can break the hold that each of you have on him and get back to my version...My real and now and alive version…" Dean ran to the bedroom where Sam's body was.

"He let out a sound. It...It frightened me." Cas had his hand on Sam's forehead. The boy had rolled over onto his side on his own and was whimpering and grunting in pain.

"He was sleepwalking...Or dream walking...It's hard to explain. I think I know how to save him."


	14. Chapter 14

**To wake or not to wake**

"How?" Cas' jaw dropped. Dean had been so despondent before. Dean ignored his best friend for a minute. He crawled up onto the bed and put his hands on Sam's chest.

"Sammy...Sammy, can you hear me?"

No response. Cas drew in a breath, about to gently scold him. Dean shushed him.

"I'm sure that you can hear me, Sam. At least one version of you can. And I want to talk to you. Especially, the guy from the hospital the day the angels fell." Dean closed one eye and peered around the room. Cas' eyes went wide with confusion.

Into the room stepped Sam only a handful of years ago. He had an oxygen tube in his nose and was dressed in a hospital gown. He stood hands laying limp to his side, blinking his red eyes. He looked defeated and annoyed to be disturbed.

"This...Is this another one of your angel possession tricks?" Sam bit his lip. He looked livid. Which, out of context, would almost be comical given how mussed up his hair was.

"No, I just wanted to see you. Specifically, you." Dean got up and walked to this fragile incarnation of his brother whose knees wobbled. If he were not an apparition, he'd not be able to stand there like that in the first place.

"What do you want, Dean?" Hospital Sam bowed his head gargling on the oxygen mask. He was so tired and his eyes said so clearly he wanted to be allowed to die now.

"To say that I'm sorry…"Dean bit his lip. This Sam scoffed. Cas stood up almost brought to tears by the sight of his friend like this, a sight he'd not had the misfortune of seeing when it happened. Only one other time before that had Cas seen Sam in a hospital and that was the night he took his mental illness from him. He didn't remember that clearly because he had shifted the insanity.

"Sorry for tricking me into letting a psycho angel possess me? Or sorry that you're manipulating me into staying alive and coming out of my coma?" Sam bit his lip annoyed.

Dean let a sigh.

"No, Sam...I wanted to say I'm sorry for a lot of things. Mostly, that Bevell did this to you and split you into a million-man band." Dean hugged the Dying Sam. To Dean's own surprise, Sam put his fragile arms around him and let himself be held.

"You-You don't have to be sorry for that. You didn't do that...M-Mom...Mom did…"Sam started shaking and burst into tears. He was sucking at the oxygen mask so hard now it was choking him and his face had turned green.

Dean shushed him holding a finger to his lips.

"Sammy, listen. I don't know how long we got, okay? I just want you to know that this time...I'm...I can't believe I'm gonna say this but I'm not gonna try to manipulate you into staying. I'm gonna beg you to stay if you can. Listen, man, I wasn't lying when I said that there ain't no me if there ain't no you." Dean bit his lip and tried to pull the oxygen tube back to a normal position. Dying Sam's eyes went wide listening to what was being said.

"And you know what I wanna tell you and that I can't actually say it now because it hurts too much and...I need you to be awake and alive for me to say it…"Dean smiled sheepishly.

"Why? If you already know that I know, what's the point of saying it?" Sam bit his lip. Dean nodded.

"Because I need you to hear it. Just the once. Okay? To Hell with the chick-flick moment rule thing, man! I need you to hear me say it in so many words. But...I can't say that to a ghost or a headstone. I need a real in the Gigantor flesh Sammy." Dean bit his lip.

"I need to say it just once, okay. If I'm gonna let you go, then we need to part on better terms. Because listen, I don't know if it's right to make you come back after what she did…" Dean bowed his head.

Sam nodded.

"I'm scared to come back, man...I'm...I'm not me anymore."

"I know. But let me tell you something. Sammy...Let me tell you something while we're here. If you have to go...I'll let you go. But I'm coming right up behind you in whatever life is next. I will die too...I swear to God my heart will bust this time and I'll be going wherever you went. If it takes forever I will find out where you went." Dean nodded. Sam let out a sob and shook his head viciously, making his hair swing in his bleached face.

"Shh...no-no… Listen. Listen….I'm okay with that. Sam. I'm okay with that." Dean shushed Sam again, finger to his lips as he tried to protest and looked over Dean's shoulder at Cas to get his help. Dean looked back at Cas and frowned. The angel felt as if he would melt into the floor.

"Look...If you...If you do come back...Okay, if you do find your way back to us...I will do my damndest to put Humpty Dumpty back together. Either way, I'm not going anywhere. You're gonna let me help you out of this, dead or alive. Deal?" Dean bit his lip. Sam nodded.

"I guess...I think I'm gonna try for coming back then. Until..Until I can't anymore." He nodded. Dean smiled.

"Or until you make it back to us, buddy. Don't be such a downer." Dean patted Sam's cheek. Sam bit his lip. His eyes went wide. He grabbed Dean's arm.

"D-Dee...I think I'm…?"

"You are. This part of you is waking up…"Dean swallowed.

The version of Sam in the bed started coughing and let out a whine.


End file.
